


A Match Made in the Astral Plane

by cipherwriter



Category: the adventure zone
Genre: there was kind of a time line at the end of the finale but probably just ignore that for this, wedding fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-12-18 08:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11870589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cipherwriter/pseuds/cipherwriter
Summary: It's a while after the Day of Story and Song and Taako and Kravitz are getting married. It promises to be a beautiful day of love and devotion, but there's one issue: Lup and Barry are liches, and the Raven Queen will be in attendance. Will our boys (and friends) be able to keep the Raven Queen away from their undead friends, or will they goof up this one too?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I know that in the finale, Carey and Killian get married and it's all very beautiful and I loved it, don't get me wrong, but I've had this idea for a while, so let's just say the timeline of the wedding being one year after the Day of Story and Song is a little stretched out, is all.

“So… what, uh, what kind of venue are you looking for?” 

The wedding planner had dealt with all sorts of clients in her life. She had had weddings in which the two families had hated each other. She’d had to organize a wedding under water. She once organized catering that couldn't contain meat, fish, gluten, or any fruit. She was prepared for basically anything that could happen.

Rebecca was not sure if she was prepared for this. Before her sat Taako and Lup Taaco, heroes of the entirety of reality. Also, Lup was a lich. And Taako was marrying the grim reaper. 

Kravitz. He’d said his name was Kravitz.

This was not a situation that could happen. Literally, liches were supposed to be like totally out of control and unsustainable from what she’d heard.

“Well, we’ve been offered the use of the Bureau of Balance, uh, sorry, Bureau of Benevolence headquarters, you know, the second moon. They have a nice big quartyard to do a whole ceremony on,” Taako answered.

Of fucking course they were getting married on the moon.

 

It had been a little past Candlenights, and it was almost the New Year. Taako and Kravitz sat together on the couch after a delicious meal. 

Taako and Lup were still the best cooks probably ever anywhere, but Barry and Kravitz were coming along with cooking and would often help out with dinner.

They were watching some fantasy TV. Kravitz leaned against Taako, who sipped a glass of wine. Taako lazily stroked Kravitz’s hair. The light was dim and they were warm under some blankets.

“Hey, Taako? Let's just do this.” 

“‘Do this?’” Taako asked.

Kravitz got down off the couch and kneeled down on one knee, grabbing Taako’s hand. 

Oh. This.

“This may seem kind of lackluster compared to what you’d usually expect, but, well, I think you're really amazing and the best thing to happen to me, maybe ever, and I want to ask…Would you marry me, Taako Taaco?” 

Taako grabbed Kravitz’s face and half pulled him into, half leaned into a kiss. 

Taako pulled away slightly, still holding Kravitz’s face. “Of course I’ll marry you, you dork,” he said, and kissed him again.

 

“Alright, so would you like the theme and the color scheme to match with the venue? We could do some sort of celestial theme,” Rebecca proposed. 

Taako and Kravitz looked at each other for a second and then smiled.

“That sounds lovely,” Kravitz said.

“There's gonna have to be some glitter involved-”

“A tasteful amount of glitter,” Kravitz interrupted.

"Oh yeah, no, it’ll be real classy, but there better be some. I will literally bring some of my own if I must,” Taako said.

“Oh, well, that won’t be necessary, I’m sure we have some sufficiently glittery decorations. Here's some themes we have,” Rebecca said, and opened the binder on her desk open to some pictures of weddings with deep blue tablecloths with silver trim, lights hung about and star shaped centerpieces.

 

The day after the engagement, Taako got up and made breakfast. At that time, most of the group was still living together in the B.O.B headquarters. Many of them had nowhere else to go yet. Any homes they may have had once were gone now, the only exception being Merle, who was usually with his kids. However, even he was with everyone for a little while to celebrate the holidays. He had been with his kids on Candlenights and would return there on New Year’s Eve, so in between he had wanted to visit for a bit. Angus, too, was at home, on break from school at the time.

In fact, as Taako made breakfast, Angus wandered out to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Hey little dude, what are you doing up so early?” Taako asked as Angus shuffled up next to him.

“I’m still used to my school schedule, I guess,” Angus answered. 

They stood in silence for a minute as Taako started to fry up some bacon.

“Hey kiddo, let's talk for a minute,” Taako said eventually, sitting down and mage handing the chair across from him out from under the table. 

“Is everything alright, sir?” Angus asked as he sat.

“Spectacular, Ango, don't worry,” Taako answered. So listen, here's the deal: Kravitz asked me to marry him last night.”

“Wow, really? That's wonderful, sir! I’ve never been to a wedding before!” 

“Hey now, don't get ahead of yourself, no one said you were invited,” Taako teased. Seeing Angus’s face fall, Taako quickly said, “Joking, joking, don't worry, kid, I want you to come to my wedding. In fact, I wanted to ask if you would like to be the flower boy.”

“Really? You want me to be the flower boy? Well, I’d love to, sir, thank you!” 

“Yeah, well, don't mention it. Or do, I mean, it's a great honor to be the flower boy for me, Taako, from TV.”

“Oh, I know it is! I’ll make you proud, I’ll be the best flower boy ever!” 

“You sure will be,” Taako said with a content smile. 

The kid had really grown on him, especially since the whole regaining a century of memories and then living through the apocalypse thing. Both situations kind of change your outlook on things. Taako had watched plenty of things suffer over his life. He didn't feel like being mean to this kid, who only had love for him, anymore. At least, not too mean.

“You know, Angus, I realize you're currently at magic school and stuff, but once summer comes and we aren't all living together anymore, you're welcome to come live with me and Kravitz, and Lup and Barry obviously, wherever we end up,” Taako said, trying to make it sound casual. “Maybe we'll even all try to stay living near each other, so you can still be with old Lu and Magnus too. I could offer to be near Merle, but I don't see why you would even want to live in the same plane as him.”

“Gee, thank you, sir! I would love to live with you all! You’ve all been so nice letting me live with you guys all this time, I don't know how I’ll ever thank you all!”

Angus fidgeted nervously for a second, and then quickly got up and went over to Taako on the other side of the table and hugged him.

After a moment, Taako lay his hands on Angus’s back. “No prob kid.”

“Merle's not so bad anymore, you know. He likes me, and I like him too, even though he never wants to show it,” Angus said. “I’m good at seeing that kind of stuff. I am the world’s greatest detective, after all.”

Taako nodded and looked down at the boy in his arms. “You sure are, buddy.” 

 

“So, which of you wants to walk down the aisle? Obviously there are alternatives as well, we can arrange it so you meet in the middle or you two walk out together or-”

“Uh hi, yeah, if you don't think I’m making the biggest entrance you have ever fucking seen at a wedding than I am going to have to hire a new wedding planner,” Taako interrupted.

“And it'll probably be better for my nerves to not have everyone looking at me while I just stand there waiting. Besides, I want to watch my beautiful husband walk down the aisle in all his glory,” Kravitz said.

“You big sap,” Taako said, bumping Kravitz's shoulder with his own gently.

“You’re both saps and you’re getting married, now don't subject everyone else in the room to your cheesiness,” Lup interrupted their budding flirting. 

 

“I cannot believe you two are getting married before us,” Lup said.

“Yeah, I mean congrats and all, but Lup and I have been dating for decades. You two have been together for what, a year?” Barry said.

They sat at the table eating breakfast together. Well, sort of. Lup couldn't exactly eat, being a disembodied lich and all, but she sat at the table while everyone else ate. 

“Better believe it, babe, it's happening,” Taako said with a grin.

Of course, the news of the engagement hadn't been a surprise to Lup. Kravitz had consulted her before proposing, similar to someone asking the parent to marry their child. He’d asked Lup is he should consult the rest of the IPRE crew, because they were basically his family too, but she told him to just go for it. 

“Well, then, welcome to the crew, Kravitz! Honorarily, of course,” Davenport said from the head of the table. 

“Yes, congratulations, I’m sure you two will be very happy together,” Lucretia said.

“Thank you all. I was... somewhat worried you wouldn't be all that happy about this,” Kravitz admitted. “It's good to see that my fears are unfounded.”

“Most people would go through a trial period of a vacation or something first, but I guess making it through the apocalypse together is better than any damn trip to the Bahamas would be,” Merle said.

Magnus sighed dramatically. “We’ve really come a long way from our first meeting, when you tried to kill us all.”

“And when you made me lose my arm,” Merle said. “Don't think I haven't forgotten about that, you and Magnus still have to make up for that.”

“I saved your life!” Magnus protested.

“And I was merely hoping to retrieve you three, it wasn't going to be some cold blooded murder or anything,” Kravitz said. “Typically those who have died over sixty times remember it.”

“Tell that to my poor, chopped off arm,” Merle whined.

“We are not going through this again, Merle, you have a magical, removable plant arm now!” Magnus said.

“Still hurt though,” Merle grumbled.

Kravitz sat rather awkwardly during this whole exchange, unsure of what to say. 

“Don't worry about them,” Barry said.

“They're always like this,” Lucretia sighed, looking at them with a combination of amusement and frustration, a very familiar mix of emotions to anyone that knew any of the people currently seated around the table.

 

Rebecca wasn't quite feeling the amusement yet, but she was quickly becoming less star struck. These dudes were total dorks. They kept calling each other pet names, but it was weird things like Skeletor and E.T. 

“So, how many people are you expecting to invite?” 

“Hmm... You answer first, babe, I need to consider some things,” Taako said to Kravitz.

“Ah, well, I’m afraid I won't have too many people to invite,” Kravitz replied. “Most of my friends are in the astral plane, seeing as until we started dating I spent most of my time there, or tracking down targets here. Most of my friends in this plane are also your friends.”

“Oh, yeah, right, so I guess it's on me. You really should get some more friends in this plane, dear, my gang of chucklefucks are about the worst people you could've become friends with here,” Taako said.

“Well there is one person I must invite,” Kravitz said, then went pale, looking off into the distance.  
“Oh dear.”

“What’s wrong?” Rebecca asked. This wasn't going to end well, she could feel it.

“Well,” Kravitz said, eyes darting over to Lup, “The Raven Queen will be coming, and with Lup in her... current state…”

“Wait wait, back up, are you positive that she’ll be coming?” Lup asked.

“Of course she will. We are very close, she isn’t just my boss,” Kravitz answered. “Not only would it be a great offense for her not to be invited, I want her to come. She has been a very important person in my life.”

“Yeah yeah she's a real cool goddess, I was a fan the few times we’ve met, but what does all this mean for Lup?” Taako asked.

“Well…”

“I am attending my brother's wedding, Kravitz, so whatever you say next better be something else,” Lup said.

“Of course, obviously, I wouldn't ever want to stop you from coming to our wedding, Lup. But… you and Barry will just have to avoid detection by The Raven Queen at all costs.”

“Oh, so we're just going to have to not be noticed by the goddess of the order of life and death,” Lup said. “No problemo.”

“We’ve faced worse,” Taako said, then turned to Rebecca again. “So you were paying attention to all that, right?”

Rebecca nodded, feeling a migraine coming on. 

“Great great, so I’m guessing that part of being a wedding planner is keeping certain people from seeing each other, right? Seems like it would be a common issue, enough people hate each other.”

Rebecca nodded again. “I have dealt with difficult situations but, I’m sorry to say it, this seems nearly impossible.” 

“Well just consider it a challenge,” Taako said.

“Besides, I’m smart enough to be able to avoid one woman pretty well, in theory. Her being a goddess makes things a bit harder, but we avoided an all consuming force that wanted to kill us for a hundred years, I’m sure I can stay away from her for one day,” Lup added.

“Of course. I- I’ll do what I can to help out,” Rebecca said, remembering again just exactly who her clients were. They had earned her help

“This is a very delicate situation, obviously,” Kravitz said and stood up. “We will schedule more meetings to work things out the best we can.” 

Rebecca nodded and walked the group to the doors. She shook their hands as they left, except for Lup, who she kind of just nodded to. 

“Thanks for the help, Reba, we’ll be in touch,” Taako said as he shook her hand. She couldn't even start to correct him before he had left.

Rebecca sighed and went back to her desk. As she collapsed into her chair, she picked up her stone of far speech.

“Hey, Tiff, you would not believe who I’ve got as clients…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz and Taako start making a list of people to invite to their wedding, and then there's some Lucretia vs. Taako drama, as there must be in any post-Stolen Century fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for liking this! I don't think this could exactly qualify as ""popular"" but for a first fic published basically anywhere I think I'm doing pretty good!

“So let’s see, we’ve got the crew, obviously, and Carey and Killian should come-”

“Don’t forget Pringles,” Merle interrupted.

“I beg you, if you are inviting Robbie, please use his real name on the invitation,” Lucretia said.

“Should I invite Pringles? I mean we only lived with him for like a week and he just got us fucked up on his weird potions,” Taako said.

“Well, we kind of have to make it up to him for getting him in jail for a while,” Magnus argued.

“Hey, that’s on Barold and Lucretia here, we had nothing to do with that whole mess,” Taako said.

Taako and Kravitz sat next to each other, writing down on a piece of paper all the people they should invite. Kravitz maybe would’ve preferred a smaller wedding than the one they were planning, and Taako, well. Taako wasn’t sure what kind of wedding he wanted. He was very happy to be getting married, and usually he loved being the center of attention, but at a wedding…

This wasn’t going to just be a party, or some big show. This was real and, like, actually emotional. Taako was still getting used to that being a thing. He knew back in his IPRE days he was still not as emotional as some of the others, but he’d been better. He hadn’t felt the need to hide everything. He hadn’t grown up alone, he’d had his sister.

But even now that he had all his real memories back, it’s not like Taako had just forgotten all of the old stuff. He was like two people in one now; one of them had spent his life with his sister and gone away to travel through the planes, the other had lived his life alone and then had a cooking show in which he was betrayed by his closest friend, who had killed a town and then led Taako to believe it was his own fault. 

Obviously what had happened with Sizzle It Up With Taako had actually been real, but he had been a different person when it happened then he had been on the Starblaster. It made the whole event almost feel like a different timeline. Almost.

Now Taako was something in between. His sister was obviously still incredibly important to him, nothing could ever change that, but he had gone for a while without her. He was a different person than she remembered. Not so much that he was unrecognizable, but he had changed, and not necessarily in a good way.

And part of that had been his unwavering self reliance and inability to trust. It had faded a bit after he regained his memories, but it wasn’t just going to go away all at once.

So Taako didn’t know if he wanted many people at his wedding. A moment of vulnerability like that was going to be nerve-wracking enough for him, he didn’t think he could handle a bunch of other people being there for that.

No matter what his and Kravitz’s positions were on that, though, they couldn’t have a small wedding. Lup and Barry would only stand a chance of being able to hide from The Raven Queen if there were enough people to act as a buffer between them. Now Taako and Kravitz were just trying to figure out who of the many people Taako had met on his adventures they would actually want to invite.

“If we are inviting other people from the B.O.B, we should probably invite Avi, too, he’s a solid dude.”

“Yes he’s always seemed nice when we’ve spoken,” Kravitz said as he wrote “Avi” on the list.

They continued for a while, each of them saying someone and either writing them down on the list or moving on. The others sitting around at the table with them (Merle, Magnus, Lucretia, and Davenport) would occasionally throw out a name or two, Merle and Magnus more so than the others.

Taako looked out the window to see the sun beginning to set. He sighed, stood up, and stretched. 

“I think I’ll start making dinner now, babe, you wanna come help?” he asked.

Kravitz shook his head and opened up a rift to the astral plane. “I wanna see if I can find everyone’s addresses so we can get a head start on mailing out invites.”

“How are you planning on getting that info?” Merle asked.

“I’ve got connections,” Kravitz answered with a little wink. He gave Taako a quick peck on the cheek and said, “I’ll get Barry and Lup while I’m out, too, we’ll be back before dinner.”

Taako nodded, and Kravitz stepped through the rift, which closed behind him. 

Taako went into the kitchen and started rifling through the fridge. Maybe he could do some sort of pasta tonight? It might be a bit late for that, but he’d make a salad too, so if the sauce ended up cooking too long he could serve that in the meantime. Mind made up, Taako started pulling the ingredients out of the fridge.

“Would you like some help, Taako?” Lucretia asked from behind him, making him jump a little. 

“Oh, Lucretia, didn’t hear you come in,” Taako said, turning to her. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen. It was still odd seeing her like this sometimes; she had no robes on, either the long, regal B.O.B robes or the red robes. Now she dressed just like anyone else, a pair of comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. 

She walked closer to the counter and pulled a knife and a cutting board from some of the drawers. Taako wordlessly handed her some vegetables and a bowl to start making the salad, while he started to work on the pasta sauce.

They worked in silence for a while, aside from the sounds of cutting and peeling. Usually cooking was full of joking and conversations. They both noticed the absence of discussion now. 

Lucretia and Taako had had a frosty relationship since the Day of Story and Song, to say the least. Taako thought this might actually be the first time they had been alone together after it. 

“So, do you and Kravitz have a date in mind for the wedding?” Lucretia asked “It would be nice to know in advance, just to get the headquarters ready.”

“Summer, at some point. Maybe July,” Taako answered, and they fell back into silence. Taako really didn’t feel like throwing Lucretia a line today, for some reason. He wanted to let it be awkward, wanted to watch her flounder as she attempted to act normal. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but he didn’t feel like being fair.  
Lucretia seemed to sense this.

“Taako, I-” Lucretia started. She bit back her words. Taako didn’t acknowledge her. 

“I know words can’t make for what I did, Taako. I don’t expect you to forgive me, I’m actually,” she chuckled a little. “I’m actually quite surprised that you’ve forgiven me as much as you have, or at least tolerated me. Surprised, but grateful.”

Taako kept peeling his tomatoes.

“I’d like to be able to make it up to you, but I can't. I know I can't. But I’ll still try. Not because I want you to forgive me, but because you deserve it.”

Taako tightened his grip on the vegetable peeler and continued looking down. 

“You all do. I just know that I took the most from you. And from Davenport.”

“You’re damn right you did.” Taako said, and then continued working. 

Taako could feel Lucretia about to respond, so before she could get a word in, he snapped, “You didn't even try talking to us about it, Lucretia. You just jumped straight to erasing everything about who we were.” He couldn't help himself, the words just kept pouring out. “And then when you needed us to help you destroy everything we did, when you couldn't just go about undoing all our work on your own, you fucking brought us back. We couldn't even know what we were actually doing! You told us Barry was the fucking bad guy!”

“I know, Taako, I-”

“You’ve always been the bad guy,” Taako said, quieter this time. He had given up on peeling the tomatoes, and now his hand were just balled into fists on the counter.

“You’re right,” Lucretia said simply. “I am the bad guy.”

The tension just kept building up in Taako’s shoulders. “Let's just check the fucking list, shall we? You made every friend Barry had turn against him, you took away everything we had learned, you took the Voidfish from Magnus, you took away Davenport’s everything, and you took away my sister!” 

“I know I did. And I am so so sorry. And I know that that doesn't mean anything.” 

“Well if you think I’m going to forgive you-”

“I don't, Taako,” Lucretia said. “Like I said before, I’m not apologizing to you so that you’ll forgive me. I know that-” she sighed. “I know that that won't happen. And I don't blame you. I am apologizing to you, Taako, because you deserve at least that much. As does everyone else.”

Taako was still angry, and Lucretia's high and mighty attitude wasn't helping. Why wouldn't she just try to defend herself even a little? She would be so much easier to yell at.

“How does Davenport feel about you now? Seeing as you erased his whole self and then made him your personal servant and all,” Taako eventually hurled at Lucretia after he had begun to work again.

“He and I have been talking for a long time. I don't know if what we have reached could be called forgiveness, which I wouldn't expect, but it is something again.” 

“Oh, and you’ve only decided to start talking to me about all this now? I suppose by now you’ve had a lovely little tete a tete with everyone else.” 

“I never saw any other time to, and-”

“No, Lucretia, if you’d wanted to, you could have found a time. You were too afraid with me. You know everyone else will forgive you in one way or another, but you couldn't make that guarantee with me, so you put it off,” Taako interrupted.

Lucretia didn't say anything.

“No response this time, huh? No contradiction that puts you on the moral high ground, no more, ‘oh, I’m doing this all for you, just like when I erased your memories, it wasn't for me and my comfort at all’ BS?”

“My insistence that I am not asking for forgiveness is not for some moral high ground, Taako,” Lucretia countered. “It’s the truth.”

“Well you keep telling yourself that, Lucretia, but I can tell when someone’s in denial.” 

Lucretia finished cutting some lettuce and tossed it into the bowl in front of her. Taako redirected all his focus back to cooking as well. If Lucretia was just gonna keep going as if nothing had just happened, then he would, too. That was how they always were around each other nowadays, anyway. And he wasn’t gonna feel bad for her for some mess that she created for herself. She had been alone for the last decade and now people wouldn’t forgive her? Boo fucking hoo. She had made him feel like he’d been alone his whole life, and he hadn’t even had a say in it.

“You’re wrong, Taako,” Lucretia said eventually. “Is it true that I would like forgiveness? Of course. Who doesn’t? The difference being that although I want it, I won’t demand it. I’ve done too much to do that.”

“Well then what are you hoping for? You say you just want to make it up, that you’re doing it because we deserve as much, but you have to expect some sort of response,” Taako demanded. “What do you want us to say?”

“Honestly, Taako?” Lucretia answered. “I’m- I would be alright if it was just this. If we could just have this for a while.”

“What, the two of us arguing with each other?” Taako asked.

“If that’s how we continue, then yes,” Lucretia replied. “What I want is a relationship with everyone. I realize that it may be strained, and I know that it’ll never be the same as before, but as long as it is something I’ll be okay. I mean, look at us now. Arguing, and yet we’re still making dinner together. And then we’ll eat together with everyone else. That’s all I want, and to do that, I have to acknowledge what I have done.”

“What a lovely little speech. You do realize this arrangement isn’t forever, though, right?” Taako said. “That I’m going to move away with my husband and my sister and we’re not going to stay up here on this fucking floating reminder of our mistakes? You may have convinced Magnus to live here but not all of us are so forgiving.”

“This ‘floating reminder of our mistakes’ is a fine charitable organization now, Taako,” Lucretia said, a bit of a bite now in her voice. She finally put down her knife. Now Taako was gonna get a real argument. Finally.

“It was kind of a charitable organization before, too, Lucretia, but that doesn’t make it any less of a way for you to clean up our mess.”

“Well, what’s so wrong with that?” Lucretia suddenly snapped. “We killed so many in this plane, and we knew that what we were doing could cause that kind of damage, but we went ahead and did it anyway! I think we owe it to everyone to make up for that!”

“And whose fault was all that?” Taako asked, his voice turning cold.

“What do mean?” Lucretia asked, somewhat taken aback.

“Well, you didn’t want to do it. You never wanted to make the Grand Relics. But do you still blame yourself for it like the rest of us do?”

“I- What?- Yes, Taako, of course I do,” Lucretia spluttered. “We all agreed-”

“But why do you blame yourself? In what way?” Taako continued probing, the same frostiness in his voice. “Do you think you share equal responsibility in making them, or do you think you share equal responsibility because you couldn’t stop us? Because I have a feeling I know which one it is.”

“I think that we all share equal responsibility for not working to find alternatives,” Lucretia said slowly, trying to word it properly. “We should’ve made a unanimous decision before doing anything.”

“Interesting that you didn’t allow for that before you went straight to memory erasing, though. As if we wouldn’t have been able to come up with any alternatives after we had made the Grand Relics,” Taako said, and then his coolness finally broke. “I mean, damn it, Lucretia, we figured out a new solution like three fucking minutes after the Hunger attacked!”

“I know that already, that’s why I’m apologizing! You don’t need to keep throwing all that back in my face!” Lucretia almost shouted. “If you would just-”

“If I would just what? Let it go and forgive you already?” Taako asked.

“That was not what I was going to say.”

“Well then what were you going to say? I know you were thinking that you wanted me to just give it up, but I’d just love to hear what you were going to say.”

“Why are you looking for such a fight, Taako?” Lucretia asked, not exactly answering Taako’s question. “I just want to apologize to you, why are you being so- so vindictive right now?”

“Because, as you have so helpfully pointed out a hundred times in this conversation, I fucking deserve to be,” Taako answered, glaring contemptuously at Lucretia, sauce making abandoned again long ago. “I have every right to fucking yell and scream and storm at you, so you’re damn lucky that I’m not doing that. I don’t have to be nice or fair, I don’t have to hear you out, and if you really don’t expect forgiveness from me you’re gonna have to realize that all that is part of the deal.” 

Lucretia looked almost as if she was about to say something back, but she deflated. “You’re right. I hadn’t expected you to forgive me, but I… I just hadn’t thought of everything that comes with that.”

“Well, at least now we’re on the same page,” Taako said with a humorless smile. 

Lucretia tossed the last of what she had been cutting into the bowl and walked out of the room, not storming out in anger, but escaping because of defeat.

Good riddance. That bad energy wasn’t good for the taste of the food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, a writer's gotta build up character tension somehow, and if they do that by writing basically just a whole chapter of arguing then that's how it's gotta be


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s time to get into some planning. Or, kinda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry for writing two chapters and then dropping off the face of the earth. I promise, I will (try) not to do that anymore. School projects and then just like actual school have put a bit of a damper on my time and energy, but I am ready to get back into this! So I may not have a perfect schedule still, but I’ll hopefully have a better one. Thanks for your patience!

“Okay, so, we’ve got a big responsibility on our hands, guys. Taako and Kravitz have got one of the most important days of their life coming up and we have got to make it good and preferably not full of a goddess’s wrath.”

“I propose we just all stand in a circle around you two so the Raven Queen can’t see you,” Merle said.

This might be a little difficult.

Winter had ended a while ago, and now even spring was coming to a close. The wedding was only a couple months away, so it was time to really kick this thing into overdrive. 

The rest of the wedding had already been figured out. They knew which guests were attending, where everyone was sitting, what they were serving, everything. The husbands-to-be had already gotten their wedding attire as well, but they wouldn’t let anyone see that.

So now they just had to deal with this issue of the Raven Queen. Lup floated in front of the group she and Barry had assembled, their dream team comprised of only the best: Merle, Magnus, Carey, Killian, Lucretia, and Davenport.

“Each of you has a skill that can help us,” Lup said. “Magnus and Carey, as rogues, I expect you to be good at being sneaky.”

“Oh absolutely,” Carey said confidently.

“Lucretia, you’re great at planning, and both you and Davenport can watch over everyone and make sure things go smoothly. In addition, Davenport’s talents in illusion magic might come in handy at times,” Barry said.

“And Killian and Merle, you two will kind of be our line of defense. Killian’s ability to intimidate and Merle’s ramblings-”  
“Hey!” Merle interrupted. “I do not ramble!”  
“Fine, Killian’s ability to intimidate and Merle’s legendary conversation skills can either keep people away or keep them distracted long enough for us to get away,” Lup said.

“Notice that Lup said intimidate or distract people. I would advise that if the Raven Queen is starting to catch on to what we’re doing that you not try to intimidate her, and probably no distracting either,” Barry said.

“Consider this though: I’m really good at intimidating,” Killian said, flexing her enormous muscles.

“Hell yeah you are, but those muscles mean diddly squat to a goddess,” Lup said.

“I still think I could scare her off,” Killian said.

“And I can definitely slow down anyone, just ‘cause she’s a goddess doesn’t mean anything when it comes to distracting,” Merle said.

“You can’t do your usual schtick of trying to convert her to Pan, Merle,” Magnus said.

“I’ve got more tricks than that!” Merle protested. “Maybe none that are as good, but still.”

“Can we get back on track?” Lup said. “If you guys have to actually distract the RQ then things are not going so well anyway.”

“Here’s a model of what the courtyard will look like when it’s all set up,” Barry said. In front of him was a little diorama in a box. It showed the courtyard of the B.O.B all set up with chairs and an altar and a bunch of tables. The chairs were set up in front of the altar with an aisle in the middle. The tables stood on either side.

“When did you make this?” Carey asked, holding a tiny chair up to her face.

“I had some free time, okay?” Barry said, snatching the chair back from her.

“So where will you two be during the ceremony?” Davenport asked.

“We will be sitting here,” Barry said as he placed a tiny figurine of himself and Lup down in the farthest back seats. “The Raven Queen will be up here.” And he placed a little statue of her in the front row.

“How many of those do you have?” Carey asked.

“Look- I- a few- does it matter?” Barry said defensively.

“Oh absolutely,” Magnus said.

“It is actually the most important thing,” Killian said.

“I genuinely will not be able to focus until I know,” Carey said.

“Fine, fine, just call me out why don’t you!” Barry said, and emptied his pockets of models of every single one of the people in the room, as well as Taako and Kravitz.

The snickers in the room quickly evolved into full on laughter. 

“So- so when you say you had ‘some free time-‘“ Merle started.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it the fuck up, but you try planning this whole thing out without these. You’ll all be thanking me soon enough,” Barry said, glaring at all of them.

“Aw babe, they’re pretty cute,” Lup said, as she held up the Taako one in his wedding dress.

“Oh yeah check it out Madam Lucretia, he gave you a little notebook,” Killian said.

“Yeah there’s an excessive amount of detail on these. Like look! You got the design on my eye patch just right,” Merle said. “And Dav! Look at your mustache! And your little IPRE patch!” 

Davenport looked over his closely. His was dressed in his old red jacket, which was what he wore most of the time nowadays as well.

“Very impressive, Bluejeans,” he said with a smirk.

“I hate you all.”

Yeah, this was gonna take a while.

 

“Okay so you step here with your right foot, and then I’ll go here, and we’ll just twirl you around and into the dip and… yeah like that!” 

They were in their private quarters as Kravitz walked Taako through the steps of the dance he’d choreographed. He’d made it with input from Taako, of course, but this was really his time to shine. He was much better at dancing than Taako was. 

Typically, Kravitz had heard, wedding dances weren’t elaborately choreographed, but nothing about this wedding was really typical. And although he didn’t show it in the same way, Kravitz was nearly, if not exactly, as much of a dramatic show off as Taako was. He was just more subtle about it, which seems contradictory but he made it work. So Kravitz was not going to allow their first dance to be some little “hold each other and kinda just rock back and forth” thing like most weddings were. Theirs would be a proper dance.

And obviously they weren’t going to tell anyone about it. That would be half the show, after all.

“So when does one of us hold a rose between our teeth?” Taako asked.

“Well, the dance isn’t really the type that you would do that with, those are usually more-“ Kravitz began, and then, realizing that Taako was joking, cut himself off and said, “We’ll both have roses in our mouths for the whole dance and we’ll have to figure out how to kiss each other without dropping them.”

“Or getting stabbed by them. I’ve been meaning to ask, do they like cut the thorns off to do that or do they just like make do, throw all caution to the winds, et cetera?”

“I don’t actually have much experience with that, but I’d assume they cut the thorns off? It doesn’t really make much sense otherwise.” 

As they talked, taking a break from practicing, they stood in a relaxed version of their starting stance, Kravitz’s hand on Taako’s back, Taako’s on Kravitz’s shoulder, and their other two hands linked together.

Taako nuzzled his head into Kravitz’s shoulder. It was a little awkward, seeing as he was a bit taller than Kravitz, but it was still nice.

“Your dance is so good babe, this wedding is gonna be romantic as hell.”

“I hope so.”

“Well if not the most romantic than it’s at least gonna be the coolest fucking wedding ever.”

“Oh, yeah, there’s no question about that.”

And the two of them went back to practicing.


End file.
